High Blood Pressure

I have been giving blood donation for several years now, maybe not as often as I should but at least regularly. They (Blood donation centre) even call me from time to time to ask if I have time to come and donate. They ‘like’ me since I’m O-, meaning that my blood can be used by any person no matter what blood type they have. So in cases where they don’t have time during an emergency to determine the blood type of a person they will issue O-. Bad side about having O- is that I can only receive O-. This is also why they take double portion from me, Red Cross calls this Double Red Cell Donation, more info here.

Just looked up Blood Types on wikipedia and saw that around 6% of all Danes have O-, no idea what the status is here in Switzerland but probably in that area also.

I always look forward for the blood donations, sure it helps that I’m not afraid of needles but I always find it interesting going there. Sure, having a good sandwich, coffee after (and sometimes a drink while donating) is a plus also. I don’t know how it is in other countries but we are not paid for the donation (Why should we!).

Blood donation failed

So recently they called form the donation centre again and I came in a few days later. Part of the whole procedure is to do some blood tests, check the blood pressure. To my surprise the nurse looked worried when she checked the blood pressure, sure it was a bit high but as far as I remembered it was also that the time before. Thing was, this time it was even higher. So I was told to lay down a bit, maybe it would decrease, as she explained: some patients have higher blood pressure due to been nervous about the whole thing. I was like: Eh, I’m not nervous; I’m just looking forward to it all. Anyway, 15 min later they checked again and yes, it had dropped. But still too high, so waited another 15 min and then it was back high. So due to that she would not go forward with the blood donation :(

So I left and right away arranged for a doctor visit the day after.

Doctor visit & follow up

A quick note, exactly a year before the visit I had all my blood values checked, all was very good (some even extreme good), all good as long as we don’t talk about BMI :-)

Anyway, I went for the doctor visit and yes, blood pressure was too high. So he gave me a blood pressure monitor. So every day for a month (Except for the few times I forgot) I was measuring the blood pressure to get a better idea about how bad it was. On average I was at 150/105 but with peaks at 165/115. In the past I was around 120/80. Pulse was at around 75-90 during the time I measured.

This was clearly too high and my doctor decided to put me on medicine to reduce the blood pressure. Great thing was that he did not tell me to stop drinking coffee, then again, coffee only gives short term peaks in the blood pressure nothing long term. So now I’m taking Coveram 5mg/5mg every day and will return in some weeks for another checkup. I’m still measuring every day and I already see some improvements, average is around 145/100, still too high but better. The lowest was 117/85, with a pulse of 66.

The plan is also to reduce my weight as that will also help (but not enough), a BMI of 35 is no good. My weight is stable at 95 kg, so time for me to come up with a plan to reduce that.

More to follow another day, for both blood pressure and the BMI fight.